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This initial letter for “Miss Crawley at Home” is an emblem of Becky’s serpentine nature – a temptress whose sinuous machinations are political, economic and sexual. The image is a sort of rebus, a dense visual sign in which the snake encircles a blade, a symbol of Rawdon’s masculinity; it is also suggestive, in the flicking tongue, of her venomous nature. Thackeray stresses the outlines of the ‘A’ shape while diminishing the cross-stroke, presenting the letter as an inverted ‘V’ – for vanity. Never less than a reptile (a term the Victorians applied to prostitutes), Becky is the very type of Biblical wickedness, tempting Rawdon, Jos and all of their sex in the manner of both Lilith (who was Adam’s original, sinful wife), and the serpent in Eden. This is the sort of highly suggestive image that Thackeray fixes in the reader/viewer’s mind at the start of each chapter, so influencing perceptions of the text.